For The Love Of Port

Greetings all,

A long time lurker who has learnt a lot from the knowledge base on this forum and I would like to quiz the forum for some advice please. My wife and I are due to have a few days in Amsterdam later this year and my mind immediately turned to what bottle/s I can bring back home. I will have been in Gigondas & Sablet (Southern Rhone) in the lead up so it will be a battle to keep one or two bottle spaces free in my luggage. My mind had turned to Colheita Ports as we rarely see these here in New Zealand and some research shows that there are a huge selection of vintages of the Kopke Colheita Ports available in Amsterdam (no surprise I guess, given that it is a Dutch house). My budget is not in the stratospheric league but I have been tempted by the 1960 as it is my birth year. While well aware of the better vintages for Vintage Port, i have no idea which vintages are highly rated for Colheitas as I suspect that these may not necessarily be the same? Are there any suggestions out there for good to excellent vintages of the Kopke or might there be other wines that people would suggest? Thanks in advance.

Regards...Mark Henderson

You'll find that most of the Kopke colheitas from this period are quite fantastic. Have you tried any white Colheitas or aged ports? Kopke have a 40-year-old white, as do Dalva (theirs is supreme) along with a 1963 Golden White Colheita. Krohn make a 1964 white Colheita. But if you decide to stick with the Kopke tawny colheitas I'd say that there's very little you can go wrong with.

Welcome Mark,
There is not a lot of quality tawny or Colheitas seem to make it to our part of the world, so I did what you were thinking and brought back tawnies and colheitas.

I did try a few colheitas at the Kopke lodge last September and some were fantastic. I don't seem to be able to find my tasting notes from that particular day. I found a note from a later day on an 83 Kopke Colhieta which was pretty good but not outstanding. There was one from the 70s I was really impressed with and I think it was from 1978 (if it wasn't 78 it was 76) - Hopefully David Spriggs will be able to confirm (or I will find what I did with those notes).
I think Daniel is right though... it is pretty hard to go wrong. I think you should be able to see the member tasting notes (alhough not Roy's if you aren't a subscriber). A few of the regular contributors have written notes on various vintages so that might be worth a look, but hopefully a few of them will chip in here
I've picked up a bottle form my own birth year (1974) from the Kopke lodge, but I won't open that until October.

Hi Mark, welcome!

As others have already said, you really can't go wrong with Kopke Colheitas from that era. Off the top of my head I don't recall every having had the 1960, but the 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, and 1967 are all excellent. (Some of those may have been Porto Rocha, a sister brand.)

You are correct that Vintage Port vintages and Colheita vintages don't always go hand-in-hand, but the opposite also isn't true. Each style marches to its own drummer, so once in a while you can get a vintage where both are superb. 1966 is one such vintage, at least in my experience.

Other "classic" Colheita vintages from the era are 1952 and 1957. Kopke's Colheitas in both years are superb. Other random examples abound - 1968, 1974, and 1976 all have great selections from a variety of producers.

I'm sure you'll be able to find something worth carrying back!

Thanks for the responses which give me some food for thought. It sounds like I'm going to to be onto a pretty safe bet, whichever year I choose.
The white ports are something I've never dabbled in Daniel other than current release wines. I have read of the Dalva wines so I'll just have to see if I have space (and funds) left.

Cheers...Mark